Hunting-centered event to benefit Wounded Warrior Project

Sid Bream poses with his wife, Michelle. Bream, a former Major League Baseball player and avid outdoorsman, will be the keynote speaker at the Sportsman’s Banquet on Nov. 14 at Central Church.

November 8, 2013

Sports, hunting and food - for most men, it's a heady mixture.

But the Sportsmen's Banquet being held at Central Church Thursday, Nov. 14 - it's open to women and children, too - will be about more than that. All proceeds will benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, which provides a variety of services to injured veterans.

The keynote speaker will be Sid Bream, a former Major League Baseball player who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves. Bream famously slid home with the winning run in the seventh game of the 1992 National League Championship Series with the Atlanta Braves. Bream is also an avid outdoorsman.

This is the inaugural Sportsmen's Banquet, said Stan Bream, of Carroll, Sid's brother. However, the church hopes to make it an annual event.

"We wanted to throw a Sportsmen's Banquet, and the group of us were sitting around the first night," Stan Bream recalled.

Several of the organizers had just returned from a Wounded Warriors event and suggested that as a beneficiary of the event.

"They said, 'What about Wounded Warriors?'" Bream said. "Every one of us said right away, 'That's it.'"

Sid Bream's address will touch on his baseball experience, but he'll also talk about growing up in a family that loved hunting and learning what Stan Bream described as "the etiquette of hunting."

"My brother is a big outdoorsman," Stan Bream said Wednesday. "In fact, he just shot a deer in Kansas about half an hour ago, and he'll be coming here in a few days to start shooting them here."

The doors will open at 6 p.m. Nov. 14 at Central Church - 24336 Highway 30 East in Carroll - and the program and meal will start at 6:30. The meal will be catered by Hy-Vee, and Central Church's praise band will perform.

The event will offer a silent auction, with items such as a gun, wildlife-themed quilts and art prints, and other donated items. Door prizes will be available as well.

Adults who purchase tickets could win a new M-1 .22-caliber gun, donated by Shooter's Outlet of Arcadia.

Tickets cost $15 per person, $25 per couple or $8 for children 10 and under. The event's organizers recommend those interested buy tickets by this upcoming Wednesday, although they will be available up until the event starts for as long as seats are available.

Those interested in buying tickets can also contact Stan Bream at 830-5669 or visit www.YourCentralChurch.com. They will also be sold at Hy-Vee from 10 a.m. to noon this Saturday.